WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. _ A Tampa woman who believes the Sandy Hook mass shooting is a hoax was arrested Monday after federal officials say she repeatedly threatened the parent of a child killed at the Connecticut elementary school who now lives in Palm Beach County.
"Look behind you, death is coming to you real soon," Lucy Richards, 57, is accused of saying in a voice message left for the parent.
The parent, who spoke with The Palm Beach Post but did not wish to be identified, said Richards left multiple voice messages Jan. 10 riddled with vulgarities and death threats.
"We are comforted to know that the system is working to protect the victims of violent crime from re-victimization by potentially violent hoaxers," the parent said in a statement.
Richards faces four counts of transmitting threats, U.S. Department of Justice records show. She is scheduled to appear before a judge Dec. 19 in Fort Lauderdale.
Richards told officials she doesn't believe the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown actually happened, which motivated her to leave threatening messages for the parent. Twenty children and six adults were killed Dec. 14, 2012, in the shootings. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
A former Florida Atlantic University professor, James Tracy, gained notoriety last year for claims that the Sandy Hook mass shooting was staged by the Obama administration to usher in stricter regulations on guns. The university fired the tenured professor in early January for failing to submit paperwork about his activities outside the university, according to Tracy's termination letter.
Tracy is fighting the university's decision in court.
A group, HONR Network, was created in 2013 to combat conspiracy theories about mass shootings, including those at Sandy Hook, the Orlando Pulse nightclub and in Santa Barbara, Calif. The network commended Richards' arrest.
